Description

Currently almost every company in the consumer IT market build their own Smartwatch, nice small devices that makes your life a little bit easier and more comfortable. But for a maker, a hacker, a hobbyist or a nerd who loves hackable devices and creating own projects, these 'boring' smartwatches are not really satisfying.

The OwnWatch is fully hackable and makes it possible to realize Arduino projects simple as usual and connect and control them with the watch itself or over the watch with your phone via Bluetooth.

Jump with the wearable technology into the next galaxy: Your watch can be the controlling- and powering-unit for your clothes and simply turn them into Smartclothes.
You dont need to integrate a power supply (battery) or a controlling-unit in your wearables, just connect your shirt, pullover, jacket or whatever you want trough the (Phoenex compatible) GPIO Port to the OwnWatch. That makes it much easier and cost efficient to create 'SmartClothes&apos

Two Tactile switches for the navigation through the User Interface + one Home/Reset button

Power Switch

Two indicator LED's on the frontside (free programmable)

Not much bigger than common Smartwatches (56mm * 40mm * 13.5mm¹-14.5mm²)

Phoenex compatible GPIO connector for the IO Pins, so it's possible to easely connect your development boards, own projects or common Arduino Shields via a board adapter to the watch. (I adopted this system/idea from the great Phoenard)

Project Logs

Hey DIY-Smartwatch Friends,It's been awhile since my last update(s) here and on Facebook. But don't worry i haven't stopped working on the Project or something like that. First of all the bad news: After some trouble i got *forced* to rename The Project. BBC don't allow me to keep the name TARDIS -Watch, since it's theire trademark and yeah... It's a pitty, since i actually took this name because i was a big Doctor Who Fan and thought this name would be great for such a 'nerdy' Watch, and also the word tARDis relates to the fact that it is Arduino based/compatible but yeah, sadly it seems that BBC don't see it as 'paying tribute to their great work' it's more like they feel hurt in their rights/trademarks/whatever.

I will think about a new name for the next two weeks and would really love to hear some ideas from you and all people who might be interested in this project! Maybe your suggestion will be the future name of the project? I'm not sure if anyone of you read this but hey, let's give it a try to solve this problem and beeing creative together.

You might wonder what else happened since my last update. Well it's a lot of coding that has to be done and i reached the limits of the little Atmega32u4, that i'm currently using on the Watch, so i redesigned the Mainboard. First i thought about using an ARM Processor instead of the AVR's but after a while i wanted to stick with the AVR's and decided to take a Atmega1284P, which has really nice specs in compare to the 32u4 (RAM, Flash, Powerconsumption, etc..). Also the Bootsection of the 1284P is larger than the Bootsection of the 32u4 which is anyway almost completely used with the USB-Interfacing. Hopefully with the 1284P it'll be possible to boot Sketches/'Apps' from SD-Card. (Just a few thoughts).

Since i decided to take the new Microcontroller i also needed an USB-Serial driver. There was only one little problem.. The entire Mainboard was already filled with parts, IC's and Devices, so i decided to replace the HM-10/HC-05 Bluetooth Module with a smaller Dual Mode Bluetooth module (HM-13), which supports the new Bluetooth Low Energy protocole 4.0, but also the older 2.1 / 3.0 Protocols.In Addition i replaced the DS3231 SOP-16 Package with the smaller DS3231M SOP-8 Version. This little replacement gave me 1mm bonus in thickness, so i thought, why not using this mm and spend the Watch a bigger battery, now there is a 402030 LiPo inside with around 200mAh.

Of course i also designed a new Case + Spacer (Between Mainboard and Displayboard) which reduces the entire Thickness of the Watch down to 14mm.

And last but not least, over the time many of you asked me when and where they can get one of these Watches, some asked for the raw PCB's + Parts for assembling it on your own, and some asked for the finished Watch. I'm still thinking about a Kickstarter Campaign, but as i've already said, there is a lot of coding that has to be done*. And of course also all these non-technical things. I hope you can understand, that it isn't possible for me to manufacture all the watches for you guys on my own here in my apartment with my soldering iron. When i'm done with all the work*, i'll give you more specific details about a Kickstarter Campaign, Videos, Pictures and all the interesting stuff that you want to see!* (mostly the coding, so if someone with programming experience want to join, you're welcome.. :) )Currently i'm writing all the System-Apps and menus for the Watch, for example the 'Analog Watch' i'm working on today(yep still in work as you can see):

Hey Andrew, thanks for showing your interest! I've got the PCB's for the 'new' version laying around here since quite a while. Currently i'm too busy with other things sadly, so i haven't had the time to do much progress on the watch. I planned to finally assemble it until next month but then there is still tons of coding to be done, so yeah... I shipped some pcb's and parts for the watch to a few people who asked me for it and who also offered to support the project by writing some code, but i never heared anything from them about the watch since then. Will post here as soon as there is something new. For more questions, details or pictures of the new watch version feel free to mail me here or to "me@morxw.com".

Hey Max,Thanks, nice to hear that you like it! After quite a few people asked me about building/buying one, i decided to try it on Kickstarter as soon as everything is done. Currently the watch is still in progress (tons of coding). Of course it is also possible to build it on your own, if you have some experience in SMD soldering (especially the QFN Packages can be a little tricky) but in most cases i would recommend to wait until you can get the assembled watch on Kickstarter. (Will be way cheaper and you don't have to order all the parts from all over the world)For all the 'hardcore hobbyists' i will also offer the raw pcb's + building instructions, if you really want to rebuild it on your own. ;)- Moritz

I kind of think that this Watch is more stylish than any Smartwatch i have seen. It just has something and it's kind of unique! I've got no experience in SMD soldering right now but I want to learn it anyway. Since I didn't work with an Arduino yet I'm going to start with that. But I already can code in c++ so thats going to help. I'm going to wait but sooner or later I defenitely gonna have it. But i'd liked it more to buy the raw one then. Tanks for your fast response.P.s Warum schreib ich eigentlich in Englisch :D

Wow thank you. I actually tried to orient myself on the design of the Phoenard and also make it practical and functional and of course there are 'limits' for me as a hobbyist in designing affordable hardware that's why it has this unique look. Don't worry with the right equipment and some practicing it's not that hard to solder/assemble these things. That's great, i'm sure this will make it much easier for you to write applications for the watch! The raw boards will definitely be available for all of you who want to rebuild the Watch (i can totally understand that, it's an amazing feeling to hold your self assembled watch in your hands and see that it works and show it your friends).

I think it's kind of polite to write in English so everyone is able to read this conversation. In messages it doesn't matter.. ;D